It appears to me that we have reached some impasse
in a design of basic mathematical structure for
Haskell 2. Sergey's proposal "Basic Algebra Proposal"
is there, but for variety of reasons (a language
barrier being probably one of them) it does not seem to
reverberate on this group.
Shouldn't we thus start with something more moderate,
that does not offer a concrete solution as yet,
but at least presents some framework for a serious
discussion?
I recently came again across a "wacko" (in the words
of its author) 1998 article by Max Tegmark
"Is the `theory of everything' merely the ultimate
ensemble theory?":
ftp.sns.ias.edu/pub/max/toe.ps.gz - USA
ftp.mpa-garching.mpg.de/pub/max/toe.ps.gz - Germany
The www reference to this is on his web page:
"Which mathematical structure is isomorphic to
our Universe?",
www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/toe.html
Interesting in itself, although highly controversial,
the paper graphically sketches a portion of the hierarchy
of matemathical structures (or rather a web) in its
introduction. It refers to Mathematics Subject
Classification from American Mathematical Society,
www.ams.org/msc/
Tegmark's sketch (both in the paper and on web page)
is obviously geared towards his interest in `TOE'
- which is fine with me but others from this list might
have completely different picture in mind.
Wouldn't it be useful to start a discussion
on the future of math structures in Haskell 2
with something similar on hand? For example,
Sergey could convey his ideas in a more compact
and clear way, using this approach. And hey, there
is Functional Graph Library waiting to be used too.:-)
After all, Haskell98 Report has something of this
sort as well.
Jan
